Star Wars Reserrection
by Jedi Master of fanfiction
Summary: As yet another full blown galactic war looms on the horizon, our protagonists stumble upon a galaxy-wide conspiracy on a level never seen since the machinations of Palpatine.  Can the plans of a madman be stopped before quadrillions die?  LEGACY ERA
1. Black Sun

[i]Choaga orbit[/i]

To the naked eye, the small moon Choaga was of no value to a spacefaring civilization. The lava coated moon and its parent planet orbited far too close to its very active sun to be habitable, and contained no abundance of resources. It was a dead moon in a dead solar system. Yet, in the unreal, incomprehensible dimension of hyperspace, Choaga just happened to be within a one million kilometer margin of the highly traversed Coruscant-Coreilla hyperspace route.

Making it a favorite of pirates and privateers.

So Captain Corleone of Black Sun was elated when the _Dauntless_'s interdictor field managed to pull an unlucky frigate out of hyperspace. He and his crew had been hiding in the dark side of Choaga for three days, their interdictor calibrated to target ships just large enough to be worth the credits, but not too large-or powerful, for the small frigate to handle. Military grade hyperdrives had a unique drive signature that allowed a skilled enough computer to detect, even in hyperspace, which ships are defenseless civilian targets.

Yet even with the billions of ships passing through the Choaga system in hyperspace every day, finding a suitable ship to prey was a tedious and time consuming. For one, the Dauntless's interdictor field only stretched out to about five thousand kilometers, and the hyperspace route stretched over a million kilometers wide. Wth the resurgence of Black Sun, many civilian vessels, both corporate and personal, were installing military class stealth systems to prevent space pirates – nicknamed "campers", from detecting their presence from real space. Of those few ships that happened to pass within five thousand kilometers of the small frigate and whose owners were too stupid to install such safeguards, most were not within the ideal weight category and drive category to qualify for looting. After they had searched captured ships for anything of monetary value, Corleone typically let the crew members go free, so he and his crew would have to quickly relocate, as the surviving crew would undoubtedly reveal their hiding spot to local authorities. Therefore, Corleone had to wait for the ripest target, as he could ill afford to stop and loot every random single manned freighter he encountered.

Finally, Corleone's patience had paid off. The frigate magnified on his viewport was a good 600 meters long, and was painted in glowing white. Behind it, the system's giant sun reflected yellow, almost golden light off of its hull, making the shiny vessel look even more appealing. Sensors indicated five thousand lifeforms, most human, and material compositions suggesting large abundances of gold, diamond and even expensive composites such as laminanium. Alerted to the Dauntless's presence, the ship had raised its shielding, revealing only moderate defensive systems. This was going to be easy.

Corleone turned to Lieutenant Jacker. "Lieutenant, jam their transmissions, and make sure you maintain our interdictor field within five thousand kilometers of the frigate. If it attempts to escape, [i]follow[/i] it. Whatever you do, should the ship escape to hyperspace, we ain't finding it, and our hiding spot will be blown." [i]And those three days of waiting will have been wasted.[/i] Jacker nodded in acknowledgment. Corleone turned on the comm speaker and spoke in as menacing of a tone he could muster.

[i]Unknown vessel. This is Captain Corleone of the Black Sun. I am very sorry to interrupt you guys and whatever you're doing, but we have a…problem here. You see, this is our territory, and we did not give you permission to traverse it. So we're going to have to ask you to lower your shielding and allow our…law enforcement troops to board your ship and inspect it. Our ship is well armed with several fighter wings and turbolaser batteries, so it would be unwise to resist. I promise you that, if you surrender immediately, none of your crew will be harmed or taken hostage. If, however, you resist our offer, your vacation will come to a very untimely end.[/i]

A few seconds later; Corleone guessed that the message was prerecorded, there was a response from a female voice.

[i]Captain Corleone of the Black Sun,[/i] – Corleone did not know how a prerecorded message knew his name and employers, but he supposed that the message had a name-recognition feature [i] this is the frigate Cebo. We are a military vessel belonging to the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances Navy. Please cease your hostilities and lower[/i] [b] your [/b] [i]shields for boarding.[/i]

Corleone and his crew sat still for a moment before bursting into laughter. It was a horrible buff. Surely the crew could have at least kept its shields down instead of revealing its weak defenses to the enemy. That way, they'd at least give the possibility that they may be heavily armed. These guys were clearly idiots, but they still had loads of cash for Corleone and his men. To his left, Jacker had stopped laughing and was staring at his tactical screen.

"Uh, captain, I think we've got a problem."

Struggling to keep his laughter under control, Corleone turned to his lieutenant. "What is it?"

"We're detecting five small, single manned fighter craft approaching twenty thousand kilometers…kriff."

"[i]What?[/i]" Corleone demanded, his serious face on once again.

"X wings! They're X wings! They're-"

Jacker was interrupted as the icons on his display flickered and disappeared, even that of the Dauntless.

"Kriff, this is not good." Jacker tried rebooting the hardware, to no avail. "They're jamming us."

"Who?"

"The ship, sir, the-what was it, Cebo? Our gravitic scanners have gone flunk, but for some reason, our EM scanners are unaffected." He pulled his face closer to the screen and tapped it. The screen changed to a picture of the Cebo, with various graphs and numbers displaying data on the ship's mass, drive systems, shielding and weapon emplacements. "Probably so that we could see this."

Suddenly, the frigate's shields were no longer weak. Suddenly, its weapons no longer consisted of a few quad laser batteries, and out of nowhere several turbolasers, missile racks and an ion cannon and popped out of the hull.

Suddenly, the crew was no longer laughing.

"Should we send another warning?" Chosk asked over the comm. The other pilots laughed, but the squadron leader Cyco actually considered it. "Maybe we should. They probably though we were bluffing the first time." Probably was an understatement; the scumbags had forgotten to turn off their comm before bursting into laugher. "No, we shoudn't." Ted chipped in. "We gave them their chance. Besides, I'm in the mood for kicking – hey, look what we've got here!" Cyco's HUD registered five boogies, identified as old but refitted tie fighters, leaving the frigate's belly. Clearly, these guys weren't getting the message.

"Rogue three and five, circle two klicks left and right. I'll go up; rogue two and four, circle five klicks left and right, copy." The instructions were met with quick "Roger that"'s from the rest of the pilots. Left and down were, of course, based on the orientation of the nearest celestial body, which happened to be the small moon that the Black Sun mistakenly thought they could hide behind. Pulling back on the throttle, Cyco pulled his X wing 90 degrees upwards, and then quickly spun his starfighter downwards when the central tie fighter was within a kilometer's distance. The tie fighter spun upwards to meet Cyco, and opened fired. Green blasts of energy zipped past Cyco's cockpit, and his X wing's sound simulation program registered the distinctive "pew pew" noise of a tie fighter's guns. But the Alliance had planned this operation with perfect efficiency. The positioning of the Cebo in front of the sun was not only to make its hull shine and increase its lure, although that was one of the reasons. Its sensing equipment jammed, the tie fighter's pilot would have to rely on his or her eyes, and the extremely bright sun of Choaga caused his shots to go wild. Still, Cyco put his X wing into a roll just in case, and fired [i]his[/i] lasers; these red, back at the approaching boogey. The tie fighter exploded, bits and pieces of it impacting against Cyco's shields.

To his left and right, Chosk and Ted had looped their X wings into figure eights, luring the clueless tie fighters right into Cyco's line of fire. Cyco tapped the two tie fighters on his display to target them, and two proton torpedos shot out of the X wing's missile hatches at the tie fighters. Too late, they saw the glowing blue objects shooting out towards them and abandoned their goose chases, and barely had time to run before the torpedos struck vaporizing the two fighters in brilliant balls of light.

The two remaining tie fighters were a good dozen kilometers away, their pilots clearly more cautious after witnessing their fellow pilots' fate. John and Smilie, the two new recruits of Rogue Squadron, targeted them and each fired a black missile about the size of a concussion missile. These new missiles, nicknamed flak bursters, exploded into relativistic, edged debris concentrated in a sixty degree cone. They were new developments, and rarely used in fleet battles due to enormous friendly fire concerns, but here they proved that they were worth the ten trillion credits. The missiles exploded, their fragments moving so fast they appeared as a solid black wave. Within a microscopic fraction of a second, the two tie fighters were grounded into dust, and another fraction of a second later a good portion of the debris impacted against the distant frigate.

Through the comm channel, Cyco could hear John cheer and echoed his sentiments. The purging of Black Sun had begun.

Corleone watched in horror as his tie fighters were destroyed. [i]This can't be happening. I was so close-[/i] "Away!" He pointed at the lieutenant. "We need to retreat and regroup. Set a random course for lightspeed." Jacker shook his head. "No good. The Cebo has an interdictor field of her own." Jacker cursed. He took another look at the tactical display; having been adjusted to use EM scanners. "The X wings are retreating," he pointed out. "Where?"

Jacker shrugged. "I don't detect any…oh, no, I do and…" Jacker's mouth figuratively hit the floor. Out of literally nowhere, the display registered a giant ship, over twenty times the size of the Dauntless. Reaching over the frozen lieutenant's shoulder, Corleone tapped the ship, bringing up the digital image of a wedge shaped ship. It was a star destroyer.

A [i]super[/i] star destroyer.

It was the Liberation, a prototype super star destroyer and perhaps the most powerful vessel ever created that wasn't a small moon, a crusher of stars, a gun of a galaxy or a Centerpoint station. Nobody would have guessed that it would be used to hunt after pirates. The Alliance sure was taking Black Sun's resurgence seriously.

The Cebo had launched five thermonuclear warheads at the Dauntless. Three had been intercepted by its point defense systems, but the rest impacted against its shields. Jacker, having regained his composure, checked the shields. "We're still doing fine," he stated matter of factly. Right after he finished, the ship shook violently beneath Corleone's feet, and he was comically thrown forward, banging his head against the ground. As soon as he clumsily stood up, the viewport in from of him shattered into millions of pieces, and the captain was thrown backwards, but caught hold of a chair in his fall. He noticed that a small piece of transpirasteel had been lodged into his left arm. He faintly heard screaming and outright panic as the ship's atmospheric shields activated to cover the broken viewport, and most of the crew had abandoned their posts and were running for the escape pods. Turning to his right, Corleone realized that his hand had not grabbed onto a chair, but instead onto Jacker's corpse, with a giant gap in his chest. A piece of transpirasteel had thrusted through him, through the chair and into the heart of the weapons coordinator. Turning to where the viewport had once been, he saw the distant image of the Liberation several hundred thousand kilometers away, firing green turbolaser bolts into the puny frigate. Corleone figured that the ship could easily have turned the ship into a cloud electrons and protons, and realized that they wanted to capture him and his crew alive.

Corleone shook his head, as though doing so would clear his mind and allow him to think up of some ingenious plan to escape. Should he and his crew be taken prisoner, they would probably be forced into ratting out Black Sun, although Corleone felt no moral loyalty to the organization. Although Corleone and most of his crew hadn't actually killed anyone, the mere fact that they were in Black Sun would likely evaporate any sympathy the Courts might feel for them. He turned to a young, nervous looking man who was still manning the controls. "Hey, you, what's your name?" Corleone tried, and failed, to hide his desperation.

"P-private Albert, sir," the boy replied, but his eyes were focused on his holopad.

"Well, it's lieutenant now." Corleone stated. "I want you to apply thrusters – full power. Get us away from here." A moment later, Corleone was once again thrown from his seat by the acceleration of the Dauntless's powerful engines. He landed on his left arm, further widening his wound. He stood up, only to get yanked forward onto his face as the ship decelerated.

"What the hell was that?" He demanded. "Tractor beams," Albert stated. "They've trapped us."

The comm system was somehow still functioning, and Corleone realized that he hadn't muted it. The woman's voice from before, a voice that Corleone could have sworn he recognized from somewhere, spoke again.

[i]Dauntless, we have captured your ship and will commence boarding operations. Do not offer any resistance, the marines' blasters are not set for stun.[/i]


	2. The auction

[i]Coruscant[/i]

Luke Skywalker had never been to an auction before, nor had he ever wanted to. He neither had much desire for auctioned items nor anything of value worth auctioning, although his unintended fame would probably make his everyday appliances sell for a small fortune. [i]Luke Skywalker's lightsaber! Luke Skywalker's flightsuit![/i] If he ever went bankrupt, auctioning would be enough to make himself a small fortune.

Instead, it had been one of his friends, a rabid and wealthy collector of antiques, who had urged the Jedi Grand Master to attend an auction being held just a few blocks away from Luke's apartment. He insisted that there was an item of considerable interest to Luke on display. Luke agreed, but also brought with him a friend that, Luke knew, was a famous expert with both legal and illegal auctioning.

"Doesn't it make you feel classy, standing with all these rich people?" Luke's friend asked.

"You could be one of them. Jedi don't seek wealth, but you ain't a Jedi. Just get an endorsement deal to some clothing line and you could easily become a billionaire."

"Or a blaster brand."

"Or sell the Falcon. It'll probably go for a good few billion, at least."

Han Solo shook his head. "Nobody is buying my ship from me, not while I'm still alive. Hey, look! It's starting."

Up ahead, a tall, thin looking humanoid with a microphone was greeting the crowd. He introduced the first item of sale; a guitar owned by some sort of famous musician. Luke wasn't interested, so he just waited it out, impressed by the superhumanly fast pace in which the auctioneer talked. It was eventually sold to a famous musician for around a hundred thousand credits. A sortie of other items were presented, none of which piqued Luke's interest. It wasn't until a good few hours in when that item of interest was presented.

A group of men brought forward a square, glass table with a red cover. Like a magician, the auctioneer lifted the sheet, revealing a silver, cylindrical object.

A lightsaber.

But not just any lightsaber. Upon closer inspection, Luke noticed something strangely familiar about the pattern and design of the hilt. It was the same as the lightsaber Ben had used in the short but significant time in which Luke had known him, not including his conversations with his spirit.

"Here we have a relic of the Clone Wars; the lightsaber used by the famous Jedi war hero Obi Wan Kenobi. We can assure you that this lightsaber is no fabrication or duplicate, but the original, untouched blade."

Luke knew the auctioneer was telling the truth. Not only did he sense no deceit in his aura, but there was something about the lightsaber, almost as though the relic was projecting part of his mentor's Force presence. There was Obi Wan's lightsaber, somehow still intact; Luke had assumed that the lightsaber was destroyed along with the Death Star. Maybe Vader had taken it as a trophy. But how did it get into the hands of somebody at an auction in the middle of Coruscant?

"Starting price, ten grand."

"I remember that old hermit," Han said. "A little mysterious if you ask me, but he saved our butts back on the Death Star. You going for it?"

Before Han had finished, Luke had already placed a bid by tapping the superfluously fancy touchpad given to him.

"Ten grand! Fifteen thousand…fifteen thousand? Fifteen thousand…" The auctioneer rambled off, until another bidder took it, and then another. And another. By the time the bidding price had past one hundred thousand, only three bidders still held interest. One of them was Luke. Another was a multi-quadrillionare named Jack Shates whose wealth rivaled Coruscant's annual budget. The third was a mysterious man who called himself Bond.

"How, exactly, do you plan on paying for this?"

"The Jedi Order has money, you know. Funds from the government. They don't have any guidelines as to how we spend it."

"Yeah, but Luke, do you really think this is worth it?" For once, Han's voice was completely serious.

"I don't know…something about it just…" He had to get it. Luke didn't know why, but his guts told him that there was more to it than simply a nostalgic piece of his life. And for a Jedi, his gut feeling was probably right.

"Alright," Han conceded. "You've just never struck me as somebody who's willing to spend this much money on a piece of nostalgia. But hey, trust your instincts. Isn't that what Ben said?"

"No, that's what [i]his[/i] master said."

"Yoda?"

"No, Qui-Gon."

"I could've sworn he said that Yoda had trained him-"

"Yeah, I don't get it either."

The bidding price was past a million credits, and Luke was beginning to doubt his chances of success. Jack Shates' wealth was incomprehensible; Luke could empty out the Temple's treasury and it still wouldn't be enough. And that Bond character. In his long years of dealing with various governments and their cronies, Luke had learned to recognize an agent when he saw one. Luke didn't need the Force to realize that Bond was government employed, but his tight knitted and concealed Force aura confirmed Luke's suspicions. And the Galactic Alliance had even more money than Shates.

Then Shates dropped out at a hundred million, probably, Luke guessed, out of boredom. The auction had been going on for over an hour, and most of the auctioneers left for the lounge to wait for the two stubborn bidders to finish, although a few stayed to watch out of curiosity. That left the Jedi Grand Master and Bond. Although Luke was not fond of using mind tricks for public competitions, he subtlety tried to suppress Bond's interest in the lightsaber. He wasn't surprised when Bond shrugged it off.

He and Bond were staring each other down as the bid neared one billion credits. [i]What interest does the GA have in this?[/i] Luke intended to question this Bond character after the bid had ended. [i]But if Bond is a government agent, he'd know about our money cap. I can't possibly win this.[/i]

"One BI-LLION credits! One billion credits…Luke Skywalker! Ok…uh, One and a half billion credits…one and a half billion credits…one and a half billion credits…going once…going twice…SOLD to Luke Skywalker for one billion credits! Congratulations boys, you've just made tomorrow's headlines."

Luke didn't know why Bond had given up, but he wasn't about to complain. After receiving the saber in a box from a very happy seller, Luke dashed to where Bond had been, hoping to have a word with him. But he was too late, Bond having blended into the endless traffic of Coruscant.

Han was waiting for Luke as he returned.

"He's gone." Luke said.

Han frowned. "Those intelligence dudes have a knack for disappearing on a whim. They're almost impossible to track, even for you."

"Well, boys and girls," The auctioneer said, his voice somewhat strained. "That took a little longer than we expected…uh, but we still have plenty of other items to sell! Next up is a pair of new Delta X manufactured freighter sized repulsorlifts and ion thrusters! One hundred billion pounds thrust…"

Luke yawned, and leaned over to Han Solo, who was clearly interested in the new equipment. "I think I'm going home. If you see anything that I might like, bid for me, ok? I'll pay you back."

"Sure thing. Don't forget your prize."

Luke knew he wouldn't, not for any time soon. He knew that Bond and his colleagues would pay him a visit soon. Luke really did need to sleep. Messing around with the government was fun, but tiring.


	3. Landoizers

_[i]Tendrando arms headquarters, Bespin, Cloud City [/i]_

"And here, behind these walls, is my-our masterpiece." Lando gestured with his arms, and at that signal the baige painted brick walls parted open, just like the secret spy hideouts seen in holodramas. Standing in front of Lando were five military contractors, all wearing green colored camoflauge. The giant cylindrical room they were in was sparkly white, both for looks and because studies indicated employees worked better in white rooms, or so Lando's wife Tendra had insisted. Several large and angled transpirasteel windows provided a nice view of Cloud City. But everybody's eyes; except for those of Lando, who was smiling confidently at the contractors; were glued to the metallic tank in front of them. Its bottom was similar to that of an airspeeder, but there was a large and bulky turret stacked on top of it with one large barrel and several smaller ones. On the sides were several tiny barrels facing the front of the tank.

"This, my friends, is the Lando-izer. Um, we haven't come up with a good name for it yet, but I can assure you that the performance is second to none." Several months ago, Lando had received an offer from the Galactic Alliance army to build them, as they described it, "the most powerful and capable land armored vehicle you can imagine." They had offered Lando, who had never built armored vehicles before, and his company a very generous amount of credits. Lando didn't know why the government wanted more tanks that would only be useful in taking on fortified settlements, like, in a conventional war, but he accepted the offer.

"Are you tired of the Mandalorians refusing to sell you their fancy Besk'ar armor? We've got something just as good; we've figured out how to adapt laminanium for use on land vehicles. As you know, this durable alloy is also used on our patented YV hunter droids; in addition to being a super-durable alloy, it can also repair its molecular structure, allowing for regeneration during, before and after combat. And, unlike with combat droids, we did not have to weaken the alloy in order to allow for limb mobility. When reinforced, this armor is almost as tough as a star destroyer's neutronium-durasteel.

"The Lando-izer has a built in, Delta-X repulsorlift, and several on its sides if it needs to, say, navigate vertical terrain, remove obstructions or blow away enemy infantry. But if repulsorlifts are a problem, we have installed retractable treads just in case." To demonstrate this, a set of black treads extruded out of the vehicle's bottom. "Built in inertial compensators, and I forgot to mention a use of the side repulsorlifts: righting the Lando-izer up if it ever gets flipped over.

"It can function in water, although I wouldn't recommend it, as the vehicle is not designed for aquatic missions. Thanks to the inertial compensators, it can be airdropped from orbit without difficulty, and its repulsorlifts should provide decent mobility in midair. The top turret has a standard issue heavy laser cannon; 20 gigajoules, 5 shots per second and five kilometers effective range, and the lower two are lighter laser cannons. All are fully rotatable 360 degrees left-right and 60 degrees up-down. Hidden on the large turret is a surface to air missile launcher to take out air threats from a hundred kilometers away, and on the sides are small antipersonnel blaster cannons."

In his long years as a gambler, entrepreneur and company CEO, Lando had mastered the subtle art of reading people's faces and body postures. He could tell that the contractors were impressed. The question as to their motives popped up in Lando's mind again, but he resisted asking. Lando was a curious man, but some things just weren't his business.

Were they?

General Shatathon, the bald guy in the middle with a no-nonsense face, spoke up. "How long does it take to manufacture one of these…Lando-izers?"

"It took us about a week to build this one," Lando said. "But at a specialized vehicle building factory, you should be able to build several a day."

"What about the laminanium?" a younger looking man asked.

Just years earlier, when he and his family were taking a joy ride on Lando's ship the Love Commander, Lando stumbled upon a large asteroid field. Well, Lando mused, he didn't really stumble upon it; it had been charted for many centuries, but nobody had bothered to scan the field, being located outside any hyperspace routes. Lando was the first to discover that the asteroid field was filled with various rare elements, including those needed for rare and expensive alloys. The field was in unclaimed space, so Lando went through the trouble of claiming it for Telandrando Arms. It was definitely worth the investment.

"I'll provide any materials you need," Lando offered a friendly smile. "And in order to assure you of the Lando-izer's capabilities," in between the two parties, a rectangular table with a hologram popped up. The hologram showed footage of the Lando-izer navigating through horizontal and vertical terrain, airdropping from orbit and tanking a giant missile. "Enjoy," Lando smiled, and left.

After agreeing to buy the semantics to the Lando-izer, thanking Calrissian and making sure that they were well outside of hearing range, both natural and technological, Shatathon turned to his colleagues. "Excellent work, gentlemen. If our friend is to believed, we will have several divisions of Lando…izers ready for deployment by our deadline." The general spoke in his commanding military tone as he paced back and forth. "Now as you all know, Tendrando Arms is a public company, and its deals with both government and private sources will be available to the public…and to our enemies as well."

Trevor, a younger man with black hair and a slight irish accent, spoke up. "But how could our enemies prepare specifically for this weapon? It's basically a very touch battle tank, isn't it?"

"That's not the primary concern," the middle aged general corrected. "The Imperial Remnant is going to be curious as to why we paid so much money to a private firm to develop something that would only be useful in a large scale conventional war. It could give us away."

"We're already 'given away'. The Remnant is already preparing a pre-emptive strike, and started doing so before we did." Debbie, a government intelligence agent in her mid twenties, pointed out.

"Yes Agent Green, but they don't know that we are onto their plans and are planning a strike of our own."

"Do they? Somehow, I doubt that we've kept our preparations secret from leaks and spies all this time." Debbie smiled. "With all due respect general, the military doesn't have the best track record at keeping secrets. It couldn't even conceal the construction of a water gate." Civilian employed intelligence vs military intelligence, a classic rivalry stretching back to the Old Republic.

"Why don't you just strike a private deal with Lando?" Trebor suggested. "Offer to pay him extra if he keeps things quiets."

"That's impossible," Shatathon countered. "How is he going to keep the production of several divisions of tanks a secret? They'll be workers on the product, engineers and various other people that our friend would have to pay off. We also don't want to pique Lando's suspicions any more than we have to."

Shatathon turned to address the rest of the crew. "Now, I have some business to attend to. I'll meet you again here, 22 Coruscant hours sharp tomorrow. See you tomorrow." With that, the five star general turned around and walked away.

Shatathon had been in the military ever since he was sixteen, and he had been through more combat than even the most hardcore [i]Battlestar[/i] gamers. He had no love of war, but one of Shatathon's core beliefs is that pacifism doesn't work. Freedom, Shatathon knew, is not free, and he wasn't going to allow the galaxy to be ruled under the iron fist another Galactic Empire.

"If it's a war that the Imperial Remnant wants," Shatathon announced as he heard Debbie follow him through the downtown of Cloud City. "Then it's a war the Remnant will get."


End file.
